


a drop of absurdity

by try_reset (technorat)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Visions, M/M, Post TLJ, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 07:53:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13185657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/technorat/pseuds/try_reset
Summary: After Crait, Kylo Ren and Hux settle into their roles.Some of them are easier than others.





	a drop of absurdity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EroEmo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EroEmo/gifts).



> A (late) Christmas gift for my friend Martin! Hope you like it!!
> 
> Special thanks to obviouslyelementary on tumblr for offering to beta !

Hux’s door is locked. There is no reason it shouldn’t be—no reason for Hux to welcome him into his private chambers during his rest cycle—and yet he finds himself irrationally annoyed by it. He punches in the overdrive and slips into the dark room.

“Lights, 100 percent,” Ren barks.

The lights turn on, blindingly bright.

Underneath the covers, Hux groans, pulling the covers over his head. Like a child, as he’d so often compared Ren to. Hypocrite.

“Hux. We need to talk.”

“Supreme Leader,” Hux says, wetting his lips. He doesn’t move otherwise, mind dulled by exhaustion. “Could this not wait until Alpha Cycle?”

“No,” Ren hisses. It’s why he is here at all. “The Force has shown me a vision—“

“Lights, 40 percent,” Hux says, rolling over in the bed, his back facing Ren.

“You’re not listening,” Ren hisses.

“I am,” Hux says, voice thick with sleep. He doesn’t roll over, doesn’t look at Ren, as he should—as he owes for his  _ Supreme Leader. _

Ren grits his teeth together, fingers twitching at his sides. He takes a breath and holds it, willing himself to stop seeing red. The vision replays:  _ the soft slope of Hux’s chin, crowns of stars, and power… power he’d never tasted before… power he still couldn’t reach. And nothing standing before the First Order. _

All of it had come to him as he had meditated within the blasted crater on Crait, where Luke Skywalker had mocked him and held him back—held him back from his true purpose, the annihilation of the past.

Ren sighs, the anger leaving him at once. He kicks off his boots and climbs into Hux’s bed.

Hux startles as the bed shifts under Ren’s weight, throwing a nasty, bloodshot glare over his shoulder. “What the kriff?”

“I had a vision,” Ren grinds out. One with  _ Hux _ in its core. One that left his Knights hushed and awed at once.

“I am not one with much knowledge of the Force.” Hux rolls over once again. “Supreme Leader,” he adds, as an afterthought.

The covers fall down to his waist with his movement. He wears a thin, white tank top, one that reveals much of his pasty form. The bruises—all shades of green and purple and everything in between—stretch far.

Ren stares. How could he not?

The General is small and frail, marred with injuries. Purple between ribs. Tar stretching across a shoulder, leading to his back. And his throat. Two Ren sized impressions of hands wrap around Hux’s slender throat.

Ren swallows.

Hux narrows his eyes, green and poisonous. “You seem rather put off by this,” he says, a hand reaching up to gently touch the bruises. He smiles, all teeth. “Blue doesn’t much suit me with my coloring, but I didn’t have much choice in the matter, Supreme Leader.”

It’s an unwanted reminder of the General’s humanity. Of his fragility.

And his insolence.

“Seems like you wish for another reprimand,” Ren says. He turns away from Hux’s frail, pasty form. He tries to forget the bruised flesh that’s already burned itself into his mind.

He can practically hear the curdle of Hux’s upper lip. “Apologies, Supreme Leader,” he says, words dripping with anger. He lies back down, pulling the sheets up to cover himself. “What were you saying about your… vision, was it?”

Ren lets out a breath through his nose.

He stands and leaves Hux’s quarters.

Once outside, he puts his fist through a durasteel wall.

*

Though he is Supreme Leader, it feels more like a title than anything else. The officers shrink away from him—visions of Hux flung like a ragdoll or that string of Lieutenants who had the unfortunate luck of being choked for their ineptitude.

And Hux still cares for most of the duties.

Negotiations with suppliers.

Organization of crew.

Drawing up plans and schemes and all the nonsense taught to child soldiers in the many, many Academies within First Order territories. 

None of it is really important. None of it is  _ real battle. _

Hux stands ramrod straight on the bridge, his coat resting on his shoulders, stubbornly refusing to fall. He holds a datapad in one hand, his gloved hand flicking at the screen. Blue light illuminates his high cheekbones. He looks up, meeting Ren’s gaze, and quirks a brow, before looking away.

The fear on the bridge is palpable, exuded from every being.

Except for one.

From that one…  _ aching _ . Old pains and new surging together. Vision dark at the edges. The tightening of a throat.

Ren approaches him, his world tunneling to only encompass the narrow span of Hux’s shoulders.

He stops once he’s a hairsbreadth away from Hux, breathing down his neck. Hux shakes, almost imperceptibly; had the Force not drawn Ren to him, drawn Ren to every line of Hux, then he would not ever have taken the care to notice.

Hux swallows, loud in the silence of the bridge. “Supreme Leader,” he manages to say calmly, as if Ren had not been looming behind him like a shadow. “What may I do for you?”

“Off the bridge,” Ren says, leaning forwards, lips brushing the shell of Hux’s ear. “This must be discussed… privately.”

He turns on his heels and stalks away, not disappointed once he hears Hux’s hurried footfalls as the man catches up to Ren’s quick pace.

Ren brings them to an empty conference room. “Lights, 100 percent.” He turns, watching as Hux shuts the door.

His lips press together, holding back nervousness. The buzz of it stings Ren. Hux looks haggard under harsh, electric lights—deep, dark circles under his eyes, bruises slightly visible from beneath the collar of his shirt. Hux lifts his chin, defiant once again.

“What have you drawn this meeting for?” he asks.

Ren raises a brow.

“…Supreme Leader.”

Ren wets his lips. His own throat aches, like a noose snug against his skin. They’re connected, irrevocably connected. But no Snoke to forge it. He doesn’t understand.

Ren paces the length of the conference room, batting a chair from his path.

Hux flinches at the sound. Ren doesn’t see it but he  _ feels _ it. 

He turns, rounding upon Hux, stepping into the man’s space.

Hux doesn’t look away then. Doesn’t shrink. Doesn’t betray the quickening of his heart. It’s almost admirable.

“Why are you not in the Medbay?” Ren asks, lifting Hux’s chin up with a finger. With the Force, he opens the collar, slipping the first few buttons free from their holes.

Purple replicas of his hands cover Hux’s throat.

Hux shuts his eyes, brows pinching.

Ren waits.

“There is no time for me to take sick leave, sir,” Hux says. When he opens his eyes, Ren takes notice of how dilated his pupils are. “We are still tracking the remnants of the Resistance—“

_ The one lonely ship that had escaped while Ren had fought a projection of Luke Skywalker. _

_ Pathetic. _

Ren sneers. “You think you can do what your crew cannot?” His hand is firm against Hux’s shoulder. “Go to Medbay. That’s an order.”

Hux clenches his jaw. “Yes, sir.”

*

When Hux does not report to the bridge for his next assigned shift, there is some apprehension—some worry for the General.

As if Ren had decided to kill his most competent man.

He wouldn't be able to put up with Mitaka’s sniveling for more than a single cycle.

Ren stands beside viewport, gazing out at the stars.

“S-sir,” one of the nameless, faceless officers says.

Ren turns to them, glaring. The officer shakes, holding out a datapad. “What is this?” Ren says, jerking his chin at the offending thing.

The officer twitches, nearly dropping the datapad. “Reports, sir. On the tracking of the Resistance. We think we’ve got a lead.”

Ren accepts the datapad, the officer exuding relief once they are dismissed.

He skims the many pages of overly wordy report.

So Naboo.

“Change coordinates,” he barks out. “We’ll finish this.”

The officers scramble to follow their Supreme Leader’s orders. Fear coats Ren’s tongue. The crew think of their General. He clenches his fist at his side, trying to hold back his frustration.

He lashes out, striking one of the consoles, before marching off of the Bridge.

*

Ren stands in the Sonic, water dripping through his hair, over his face. Over the still healing bowcaster wound on his side. It stings. Almost as badly as the defeat at Crait, just a few cycles behind them.

And they’re no closer to finding the paltry remains of the loathsome Resistance.

Ren pauses, pressing a hand against the scar the scavenger girl had left.

_ Loathsome Resistance. _

Those weren’t his thoughts.

Weren’t his words.

The Sonic stutters off. Ren dries himself hastily, dressing in whatever he grabs first from his closet, clothing sticking uncomfortably to still damp skin.

He cannot escape Hux no matter where he goes. He thought it annoying, suffocating—a vice around newly found freedom. And then the damned First Order had to long for the General, had to trust  _ him _ more than their  _ fraking Supreme Leader _ .

He makes his way to the Medbay, pushing past droids.

Ren pulls a curtain aside, revealing the ‘room’ set aside for Hux.

Hux sits up on the bed, many needles pressed into the inside of his elbow, various fluids dripping into his prominent veins. He wears nothing but the standard Medbay gown. “Supreme Leader,” he greets, pulling the sheets up to his shoulders. He doesn’t really relax, just watches Ren with his wary, glassy eyes.

Ren feels Hux’s exhaustion as if it were his own.

“What brings you here?” Hux asks. He slowly sinks into the pillows. 

“I felt that you were awake,” Ren says.

“Felt,” Hux repeats dumbly, fluttering his lashes. He wrinkles his nose in disgust. “Surely that cannot be right, sir.”

Ren grinds his teeth. Never would he have thought he would grow to  _ miss _ the snipy, prissy Hux. At least it was entertaining talking to him then.

He walks over to the bed, glaring until Hux scoots over. 

“This isn’t sanitary,” Hux mutters under his breath, looking at Ren’s clothing.

“I just took a sonic,” Ren says with a scowl. “And the clothes are clean too.” He tugs the sheet over himself and then tugs Hux into his arms, resting his chin on Hux’s bony shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Hux says.

Ren rests a hand over Hux’s heart. “Ensuring the health of my right hand man,” he says.

“This is a bit of an unorthodox method,” Hux mutters. “What’s gotten into you recently, Ren? First you throw me around like I'm nothing at all, then you clutch at me like I'm your favorite toy.”

“I should punish you for such words,” Ren mutters.

“You’ve already done enough.” Hux’s throat aches, even with the pain killers he’d been given.  _ All Ren’s fault _ , Hux thinks.

Ren doesn’t apologize.

*

_ Rain. _

_ Ren’s eyes open, taking in grey, stormy skies. Droplets fall slowly. He raises a hand, preventing them from falling on him. He sits up, taking in his surroundings. _

_ Smoldering, grey buildings. Muddy dirt and the fading grass that springs from it. _

_ And a child sitting beside him. _

_ “Who are you?” Ren says, hand reaching for his lightsaber. It isn’t clipped to his hip as it usually is. _

_ The child— the boy cannot be older than five years, wearing a First Order cadet uniform far too large for him. His hair is wet from the rain, slick against his skull. “You’re awake,” he says, in a voice too old for his years. _

_ The rain stops entirely, but no sun appears from between the thick, grey clouds. _

_ Ren blinks. “Hux.” _

_ The boy raises a brow.  _

*

He wakes up.

Hux is facing him, hair limp against his pallid skin. “What were you doing in my dreams, Supreme Leader?”

The bed is entirely too small for the both of them. Ren is curled up into Hux’s space, knees against knees, his hands over Hux’s sides.

Ren snorts. “It was an accident. I wouldn’t actually want to be there.” He brushes some of Hux’s messy hair aside. It’s stiff; whatever product Hux used for it normally is still there.

Hux hums softly, shutting his eyes.

The bruising has receded slightly. Just slightly.

Ren can’t look away. Hux has pulled him in entirely, gravity sending him crashing down, down, down. He thumbs the corner of Hux’s mouth. “How long did you think about becoming Emperor?” he asks.

Hux opens his eyes wide, that green-grey-blue  _ something _ dulled with fear. He tries to wriggle away, hardly able to make space between them.

Ren pursues him, until there’s no more bed for Hux to escape to. Until the IVs and their stand rattle precariously.

Hux smells of fear—something that doesn’t suit him.

“Stop shaking,” Ren orders.

Hux doesn't listen. He watches warily. “So are you going to kill me then?”

Ren frowns, leans his head back on the pillow.

“Why did you declare yourself Supreme Leader…?” Hux asks. “You never seemed to want to—“ He pauses, seeming to search for the right words. “—have bureaucratic control.”

Ren lies there, quiet for a moment.

“Power,” he finally decides. “All my life, I didn’t have power over myself. Over my choices. Why wouldn’t I want to finally seize it?”

Hux snorts.

“What’s so funny?”

“I’d say much the same about myself.”

*

Hux is back on the Bridge, where he rightfully belongs, coat hanging on his shoulders. His bruises don’t stand out so stark against his skin any longer. And Ren no longer has to deal with backlogged reports.

Ren stares.

Hux doesn’t do anything to dissuade him. 

“Supreme Leader, we’ve reached Naboo.”

Ren nods, eyes never leaving his General. “I leave it to you.”

 


End file.
